When the going gets tough … four ways the tough get going in real estate
Wanna get your house sold? Starting with a good real estate agent is a good first step. Choosing a real estate agent who is diligent in the pursuit of your needs–as well as disciplined in the art of honest selling–is a solid head start. And you need a good head start to beat out your competition.
Talk is cheap, so without further delay, here are four ways the tough get going when the going gets tough.
Ready, set, go. Right out of the starting gate, you need to make sure your house is priced well. In some markets, this might require a more aggressive pricing strategy. If you are competing against short sales and REO properties, buyers are not going to pay more for your house than what the market bears, and a reputable appraiser is not going to appraise your house for more than the market comparables show.
Your best advantage? Kimberly Shook, Connect2Agent member and real estate agent in the Fort Worth area, believes in order to get the best jump start, sellers need to get their feet on the track and “be aggressive. Old school pricing was twenty percent overpriced. Now you need to price to sell. Get your list price within one to two thousand from your bottom line price.”
If you don’t have to sell and are willing to wait for the inventory to flush out before you step into the market, it is a better option than sitting on the current market with an inflated listing price.
Pretty in pink: Maybe to you, but not so much to a prospective home buyer. Whether a property is 
occupied or vacant, a home buyer needs to be able to envision your home as their home. A prospect who walks through the doors of your house should be busy touring each room, not your medallions and photos.
Shook believes staging is so important that she pays for her clients’ first consultation with a stager. If her clients choose not to use the services of a professional stager, Shook will do her own staging by using flower arrangements, leaning pictures and giving advice on decluttering.
In a market heavy with inventory, Shook says sellers “… cannot have a property that’s shabby. If you have five houses that are the same, statistics show the ones that are staged sell much faster.”
Time for some computer love. Begging your real estate agent to advertise in the newspaper? You might want to rethink that. Shook spent $20,000 on print media two years ago and couldn’t track any results. This past year, she switched her advertising dollars to the Web. It has already paid off with many buyers. “People shop online,” she said.
If your house is not online - everywhere - it might as well be invisible.
Get the facts - don’t believe the hype. Pricing, appearance and marketing are your triple play success story. Want the real story on your true real estate market share? Shook estimates that in the North Fort Worth area, there’s about an 18- to 24-month shift before the foreclosures get purchased. Despite this heavy inventory, houses that are priced right and are staged well can sell in a 3- to 6-month time frame.
When the going gets tough … follow the tough and get going.
Posted by Rebecca D. Levinson
Tags: chris-moran, community-info, foreclosures, going, high-inventory, homeowners, information, market, monthly-archives, north, Real Estate, recent-posts, seller-advice, street, tough, Uncategorized, ways-the-tough, when-the-going
